Network devices, such as routers, may be configured to distribute incoming traffic received at an ingress interface, or port, across multiple output links associated with an egress interface. Incoming traffic may be distributed across multiple links in order to achieve an output bandwidth that is greater than the bandwidth associated with any one of the multiple links. Multilink networking protocols may be used to facilitate distributing incoming traffic across multiple output links and to facilitate reassembling multilink traffic received at a destination device.
Existing multilink implementations may associate the control of output links with a board, such as an egress interface board, in a manner that does not allow reconfiguration of output links. As a result, network devices may be configured to operate with particular multilink implementations. For example, an egress interface board in a network device may be hardwired with four T1 links that can be used for multilink transmissions. In this example, if one T1 link becomes disabled, the egress interface board may have to operate at a reduced throughput using three T1 links. Reconfiguration of links may be discouraged because a controller on the egress interface board may be aware of only those links physically associated with that board.
Existing implementations may not provide flexibility in selecting links for use in multilink transmission implementations. The lack of flexibility in reconfiguring and/or selecting links for use in multilink implementations may prevent communication networks from operating efficiently.